Aruba Airlines Flying to Bonaire Starting November 30!
- Thread starter KathyV
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jimw
Contributor
It is worth noting that Aruba Air had previously announced a start date of Nov. 1st, and of course; did not. Time will tell if they are a Dividivi or an Insel! Dividivi Air has been a paragon of reliability in the region and Insel has not. Dividivi has announced starting service to Aruba from Curacao and currently has service Curacao--Bonaire. They will be using 19 passenger Twin Otter aircraft and have taken delivery of 1 and are doing training according to a Curacao Chronicle story a few weeks ago.
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Southwest flies from Midway to Aruba with a connection in Orlando both ways.
I think they still do two free bags also.
United has one direct flight on Saturday from ORD to AUA - it appears to be the only one. I used next week but the price is probably cheaper in the summer.
I think they still do two free bags also.
United has one direct flight on Saturday from ORD to AUA - it appears to be the only one. I used next week but the price is probably cheaper in the summer.
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Yes. Delta flies to BON. It's usually over $900/ticket, whereas AUA is about $450 - $550/ticket. Using FF miles is an efficient way to get there. It's just a drag that they only fly on Saturday and Sunday. I really don't like taking a full week vacation. A couple of years ago, Delta added a Thursday flight during high season. I guess they didn't see a payoff for adding the capacity. It hasn't come back.
So here's a question for the frequent visitors of Bonaire. If the island convinced the airlines to add capacity, is there enough infrastructure (hotels, rentals, cars, fresh water) to handle many more visitors?
darook
Contributor
I think they could handle a few more flights. Occupancy at the dive resorts is always pretty high but the private residences through VRBO and Airbnb seem to always have a fair amount of room. Now that there is the new Delfins resort and the Marriot that is a lot of new capacity as well. One thing to remember is that there are probably more seats per week from Amsterdam than the total of the US carriers. KLM is in there with an A330 a few times a week and the charter lines in Holland bring in 787s from time to time. Yes, I am bitter the US airlines fly ancient fleets!
OP
American used to regularly fly to Bonaire but I don't remember how many times per week. We were never able to fly direct from Chicago, we always had to connect in Miami. In the old days we would connect to an ALM flight but that ended so we would fly AA from ORD to MIA and then to Bonaire.
At least we could get there on the same day with both AA and ALM. We'd leave early in the morning and check in at the hotel during the afternoon - but after AA stopped flying to Bonaire it became more difficult to get there - at least from the Midwest. It was a lengthy and expensive journey and we would arrive in the middle of the night - so we had to leave a day early and pay for an extra hotel night.
A dive op owner on Bonaire once told us the circumstances of AA's withdrawal from the island. He said that the route wasn't much of a money-maker for them and so they asked the island's government to pay them to keep flying there. The government wanted the business owners to come up with all (or some?) of the cash - sort of an extra tax. The business owners were against it because they figured it would become an annual demand and the price would keep going up - and they were probably right. So Bonaire refused to pay AA to keep flying to Flamingo airport and AA withdrew.
I can understand how the business owners felt, but it did hurt the tourism industry on Bonaire. It can be difficult and expensive to get there.
I suspect they could increase US traffic 50% without a problem, maybe even 100%.
I find the flight choices are always a trade-off between cost and convenience. Coming from the east coast, connecting in ATL and getting there in the afternoon is terrific, as is the schedule going home. The new Aruba Airllines flights a very carefully scheduled to make same-day travel impossible, both directions. I'm not going to make an extra connection in Aruba, with an overnight, each direction, for nearly the same price.
My favored solution is JetBlue from FLL. I believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny, too..
I find the flight choices are always a trade-off between cost and convenience. Coming from the east coast, connecting in ATL and getting there in the afternoon is terrific, as is the schedule going home. The new Aruba Airllines flights a very carefully scheduled to make same-day travel impossible, both directions. I'm not going to make an extra connection in Aruba, with an overnight, each direction, for nearly the same price.
My favored solution is JetBlue from FLL. I believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny, too..
OP
Currently, KLM does a daily A330, TUI does a 787/A330 4 times a week. That said, KLM (and TUI as well, to my knowledge) does Aruba on the same flight, with most of the passengers actually going to Aruba. It will vary per flight, but from personal observation less than a quarter typically disembarks at Bonaire. These flights do tend to be fairly full.
One thing I do wonder about is capacity. There's enough accommodation available, and the airport should be able to handle it; however, I'm not at all convinced the diving can handle a huge increase in divers; at least not the shore diving.
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